the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Farm visit

Forth Valley and West Fife Smallholders' Association had its first farm visit today. I think it would be judged a success!

We visited Mid Torrie Farm, near Callander, which is home to Bernard and Hilary Barker and their fold of Highland cattle. Eight of us went along; the weather was lovely and the hosts generous with their time, expertise and excellent meat pies!

A full report, with photos, will appear on the Association's website www.smallholders.info shortly.

Huntly Farmers' Market

Dan and I were up in Aberdeenshire this weekend, tentatively looking at property. We'd like some more land and there's not much around here, so we thought we'd look North East. It was very nice and there were lots of suitable properties but it's not home. I'm not sure I'll ever leave Clackmannanshire.

Anyway, while we were there, we visited Huntly, which is a nice town with a lovely square (and a nice tea shop called "The Merry Kettle", if you ever visit). The local Farmers' Market was on and, although small, it had some good stuff including two stall selling local, farm produced butter, cheese and yogurt. We bought some butter (unpasteurised and unsalted), soft cheese and drinking yogurt. It's all lovely!

We also bought some mincemeat muffins, which were OK. As a keen muffin maker, I decided to make some of my own this morning. I must have gone a bit hogwild last year with the mincemneat making, because I've still got a few jars left. This is good, insofar as it combines awfully well with our apples in a crumble or a steamed sponge. The muffins are rather nice - I wish you could have smelled them, too. The kitchen was all warm and spicy. I will have to get my tasters to try them and give a verdict - that's Dan's Mum and Dad and the milkman. If it get's the thumbs up, I'll put the recipe on here.

RHS in the rain!

Dan and I had a day at the Royal Highland Show on Saturday. It was wet, but OK if you were prepared, as we were. Sun hats weren't selling well, but waterproofs were. I predicted at 9am, as the rain teemed down, that the sun would be out by lunchtime. It came out at 2pm - so I wasn't far wrong. As we left at back of 5, the heavens opened again though.

The poultry marquee was abit disappointing. There was no poultry equipment for sale and nothing really to promote smallscale poultry keeping. Although tere were some interesting birds, there was almost no information about them, not even the breed. So for the inetersted lay person, it was a bit of a letdown (IMHO).

There seemed to be good entries in the private driving. The singles class must have had over a dozen entries and the heavy horse private driving (a first this year I think at RHS but popular in the States) had nine entries and a spectacular accident. Fortunately, neither horse nor driver were seriously hurt - the spectators (us) at the fence that the runaway horse hit needed a stiff drink, though!

I suggested to Dan that if we got more land, we'd need a mini tractor or an ATV but, in typical male fashion, indicated that he'd rather have a BIG tractor. There was one on sale for £250,000. The amount of land we can afford wouldn't be big enough to park it on!

We enjoyed the food and crafts. No coloured Ryeland sheep - only white, which was bit disappointing. I'd taken a big bag, in case I could slip away with one! I suppose, I'll just have to pay the money!

Anyway, better go and get on with the evening chores while the sun's out.

Stirling Show 9th June 2007

Lorna and I paid a visit to Stirling Show on Saturday. The weather was pleasant, so we had icecream and looked at all the exhibits, including the vintage tractors, Clydesdale horses, beef cattle and sheep. There were lots of horse classes, and a few competitors that I knew from my previous livery yard, so it was nice to catch up with them.

I almost bought two rain hats and a deerskin, but the stallholder didn't take either credit or debit cards, which I found a bit bizarre in this day and age.

The whole thing just whetted my appetite for the Royal Highland in two weeks time! Hope the weather's equally good - or at least dry.

Stirling Show tomorrow

Stirling Show's on tomorrow. It's not very well publicesed - I didn't see it in the Scottish Farmer today and there's nothing on the web that I can see either.

Anyway, I THINK it's beside the A907 between Tullibody and Manor Powis - it's had so many sites in the last few years, I can't keep up. There will be all the usual livestock classes, horses, ponies, dog show etc etc.

I think the weather forecast is good, so if you're at a loose end, go along. Just don't say I sent you!

It's also Stirling Farmers' Market in town, so two outings for the price of one.

Rare Breeds Sale 5th May 2007

For interest, Aberdeen and Northern Marts have a Sale of Rare and Minority Breeds at their Thainstone Centre in Inverurie on Saturday 5th May. Their website is www.goanm.co.uk.

Carlisle Rare Breeds Sale

Well, I'm just back from the rare breeds sale at Carlisle. Carol, Graeme and I left at 6.30 this morning and got there about 8.30am.

We had a look round the poultry and waterfowl, which were just arriving, then had a look at the pigs and some of the sheep. The auctions started at 10.30, so two hours seemed like ages, but there was loads to see and lots of the breeders were happy to discuss their entries with us.

I watched the pigs being sold. There wasn't a huge entry but it was the first time for many years that pigs had been sold there. There were a few Tamworths - maiden gilts(£90), sows (£150) and weaners (£32-£70); one Berkshire gilt (£100); one Saddleback gilt (£100); one Saddleback gilt with a litter of nine three week old pigs (sold for £450, which I thought wasn't bad value); four Saddleback weaners (£45)(these were not suitable for registration as they didn't conform to the breed standard as their "saddles" weren't complete); < acronym title="Gloucester Old Spot">GOS weaners £70) and a Welsh boar (£170). There was also a pen of Tamworth x GOS weaners, which were ginger with black spots. These went for £35-40 each, which seemed a good buy to me.

We also saw the Highland and Dexter cattle sold. Top priced Highland we saw was £700 for a 15 month old heifer. Dexter cows were about £200 - £300 with calf at foot. None of the Dexter bulls sold.

The Hebridean sheep were next. Prices for females were between £5 (yes, five pounds) and £50, with most selling for about £30. Rams were selling for between £5 and £25.

Then came the Ryelands. We had spoken to a couple of breeders before the sale started. These are seriously nice sheep. They look like teddy bears, they are very docile and friendly, don't have escapologist tendencies and are quite small. Wow. Lots of people think they are seriously nice sheep. The breeders we spoke to had three shearling ewes for sale and were hoping to get £150 each; they sold for £110, £280 and £320 each. Top priced shearling ewe was £360. Ewe lambs and aged ewes were between £90 and £140, with few exceptions; rams, surprisingly cheap, we thought, at under £200. Coloured Ryelands were a wee bit cheaper. I think my Ryeland flock is on hold meantime!

Unfortunately, all this excitement meant that we missed most of the sale of poultry. If I had been better organised and focussed, I would have bought some pullets. The prices were reasonable and the stock looked in good condition. Maybe next year.

I've subscribed to a rare breed mailing list so I get notification of rare breed sales in the UK, so I might not have to wait a year for the 14th Annual Carlisle sale.

Well, it's cold and wet here, so I'm off to light the fire then to pickle pears.

The Hunger Barrier

It may be two years old but Tim Bray's 'The Hunger Barrier' is as relevant today as it was then, perhaps more so given the G8 and Live8. Read it here and understand why an end to farming subsidies is so vital:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/11/AfriFood

It's Showtime

Dan and I made our annual visit to the Royal Highland Show on Friday. The weather was lovely - which was great because it bucketed rain on Thurady and Saturday.

I love the Highland. I started going when I was a student - as an agricultural student, it was part of the course of study to spend four days a year in the late, lamented Herdsman bar. I don't do that anymore but I enjoy it justa s much and maybe more.

I was very fortunate to be introduced to Mr Willie Allan, renowned breeder of Highland ponies and, indeed, breeder of my own Smokey. Despite all the ponies he must have bred over the years, he seemed to remember every one and seemed genuinely interested in their progress. Smokey's (remember his proper name is Munro of Millfield) full sister was at the show (Misty) and his half brother, MacCallum (aka The Bandit). Smokey and the Bandit - get it! Bandit is much smaller than Smokey and yellow (I think) dun. He also had a wad of red rosettes to his credit.

Dan and I spent a good long time in the Food Hall, as always.

There seemed to be a lot of small scale poultry equipment for sale - more than I remember in previous years. The poultry tent was almost empty - I don't know whether the chooks had gone home or were still to arrive or whether the entry was very, very poor.

I did look longingly at the Jersey cows, but Dan said "No". We also had a wander round the goat tent but I think dairy is still out of our sphere at the moment.

Just before we left, we watched the heavy horse turnouts. There were 11 unicorn turnouts. There were teams of Clydesdales, Shires and Percherons. A unicorn consists of three horses; two are wheelers, directly infront of the wagon and separated by a shaft, with the third horse out in front. It doesn't look the easiest thing to drive, particularly since the horses must be about 17.2 hands and weigh about a tonne each. If they decide to go, I'm not sure it's that easy to stop them. One team did get a bit spookey and were withdrawn. The others were split into three groups and were asked to walk and trot round in both directions. Some of them didn't seem to do "walk".

All in all though, it was pretty spectacular and , for me, knocked all your Ferraris and Lamborghinis into a cocked hat!

GM doubts

While the UK government prepares to take a decision which very few of its citizens support and which could have far-reaching implications for the environment, the man who is effectively Ethiopia's Environment Minister had this to say on the issue of GM crops:

"A single technology does not constitute development. There is no evidence that GM varieties produce better or more than their non-GM counterparts. They only bring in new vulnerabilities." (BBC News)

Mr Blair, Mr Morley, are you listening (to anyone other than Monsanto)?